Authors: Chris Ryan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Mysteries & Detective Stories
Desert Pursuit (20 page)
They reached Samir’s village just after dawn. Their camel train had been spotted a long way off, and by the time they approached the straggle of mud-brick houses a hostile group was waiting for them on the edge of the village, armed with rifles.
‘What’s going on?’ demanded Amber. ‘Why do those men have guns?’
Khalid explained that there was no love lost between Arab villagers and Tuareg nomads. The name had been given by the Arabs and it meant ‘abandoned by God’. The Tuareg preferred to call themselves
Kel Tageulmous in Tamachek,
a mouthful which translated as ‘people of the veil’.
Kel Tageulmous in Tamachek,
a mouthful which translated as ‘people of the veil’.
‘But why don’t they like each other?’ persisted Amber, eyeing the rifles of the village men as the camels swayed steadily nearer.
‘The Tuareg – this is their land, long time back. They think, Arab not belonging here. The Arab, they have many times the Tuareg raiding their villages.’ Khalid shrugged. ‘Is how it goes,’ he finished.
The tension increased as the camels drew closer to the village. The Tuareg did not help matters by veiling themselves so that only their eyes showed like black stones through a slit in the cloth.
‘After all this, there’d better not be any shooting,’ muttered Hex, watching the village men’s fingers straying closer to the triggers of their rifles.
Suddenly Samir spotted his father amongst the crowd. With a cry, he slid recklessly from the saddle while his camel was still moving. The Tuareg leading the beast reacted quickly and managed to catch Samir before he hit the ground. He set the sobbing boy gently on his feet and they all watched as Samir ran towards his father and jumped into his arms.
The village men did not know how to react. Some lowered their guns; others raised them to their shoulders. The Tuareg tensed and swung their AK-47s from their backs.
‘Khalid!’ hissed Amber. ‘Explain. Fast!’
Khalid stepped forward and began to talk to the village men. Alex realized that he could pretty much guess what point Khalid had reached in the story by watching the changing expressions on the faces around him. They went through a whole range of emotions from disbelief, to anger and, finally, to sorrow.
When Khalid had finished, Paulo and the leader of the Tuareg lifted Hakim’s body down from the little red camel and carried him over to his father. The gaunt-faced man set Samir on his feet and held out his arms for his other son. They laid the wrapped body gently in his arms and he cradled the boy for a moment, his face full of grief.
Finally he raised his head, looked the Tuareg leader in the eye and spoke to him. The Tuareg inclined his head, then took hold of his camel’s head rope and began to lead the beast over to the village well at the centre of the tired little plantation of date palms. The other Tuareg followed, each inclining his head gravely to Samir’s father as he passed.
‘What did he say to them, Khalid?’ asked Alex.
‘He say the best thing to a Tuareg,’ whispered Khalid, his eyes damp with tears in his scarred face. ‘He say, like brother, “our water is yours”.’
T
WENTY – FOUR
WENTY – FOUR
The Tuareg left an hour later, with their camels watered and their girbas full. Alpha Force watched from the outskirts of the village as the swaying camels and the men in blue robes walked off into the rising heat of the day, but the Tuareg never once looked back.
They buried Hakim in the dusty little graveyard on the edge of the village later that morning. The whole village was there, standing out in the merciless heat of the sun to say their farewells. The women wailed and wept over the grave. Hakim’s mother was inconsolable and had to be supported by two other women as the burial went on. Samir stood on the opposite side of the little grave, dry-eyed now, with his father’s hand resting on his shoulder.
Alpha Force, Khalid and the other children kept to the back of the crowd, feeling awkward and out of place. Li decided she would come back to the grave later, when everything was quiet, to say her own goodbyes.
After the burial there was a village meeting. Alpha Force had already warned the people that they thought the Scorpion would come searching for Samir. Look-outs were posted around the edges of the village and the rest of the people gathered in a shady courtyard at the heart of their community to decide what to do next. The meeting was held in French, the only language common to everyone there, although Alex, Hex and Paulo found it a struggle to keep up with what was being said.
‘When the Scorpion arrives, we will kill him and his men,’ said Hakim’s father and the village men cheered, shaking their rifles in the air.
Amber looked at the others and they nodded at her to go on. She was the best French speaker and they had made her their spokesperson. She rose to her feet and waited for the people to grow quiet before she spoke.
‘My friends and I think that would be wrong,’ she said. ‘If we kill these men, then all the people who have helped them to sell children into slavery will go free. If we capture the Scorpion and hand him over to the proper authorities, then the whole trafficking ring will be caught.’
‘The authorities have done nothing to stop him so far,’ called a voice from the back and the people shouted in agreement.
‘I promise you they will do something this time,’ said Amber stoutly. ‘There are international agencies who have been after this man for years. If they have the Scorpion, they will make sure the rest of the trafficking ring is destroyed. My uncle is a powerful man. He will also make sure of this.’
The people murmured unhappily. They had just buried one of their own and they wanted their revenge. Amber could see that she was losing them, but she kept trying.
‘If you kill these men now, their organization will continue. More children will die. Children like Hakim.’
The discontented murmuring grew in volume and a few men raised their guns in the air again. Amber felt her heart sink. Then Hakim’s mother stood up and gazed around the small crowd. With her face drawn with grief and her eyes red from weeping, she made a powerful figure, and the people grew quiet to hear what she had to say.
‘Our oldest grandfathers still remember a time when great trade caravans of camels passed through here, carrying salt, spices, ostrich feathers, gold and copper. Our village was a good place to live then. The wells were full and the caravans brought us wealth.’ She paused, looking around as the people nodded in agreement.
‘But now our village is dying. The drought has sucked dry all the wells except one and the caravans have stopped passing through. Instead, big trucks carry the trade goods along black roads far to the east of our village.’
Hakim’s mother paused again and looked across at her husband. The next thing she had to say would be difficult for both of them. ‘That is why we let the Scorpion take Hakim and Samir away with him. We thought we were doing the best for our sons.’ She searched for Samir and her dark eyes softened as they lingered on him for a moment, but when she faced the villagers again, her eyes were hard. ‘That man promised us he was taking our sons to a better life. He promised us they would be taught a trade and find work in Morocco. So we let them go. This morning we had to bury one of them. I do not want any more children to die. I want to catch
all
the slavers. I say we listen to the American girl!’
all
the slavers. I say we listen to the American girl!’
This time the murmurings were in agreement. Amber relaxed as Hakim’s mother sat down again. The tide was beginning to turn.
‘How will we capture them?’ asked a young man. ‘You tell us they have Kalashnikovs. We have rifles but nothing to match those weapons.’
‘We shall not use guns,’ said Hakim’s mother, rising to her feet again. ‘When the Scorpion comes, we shall hide Samir and his new friends away. Then we will welcome these men back to our village with a special feast.’ She held up her hand to stop the outraged shouts of the crowd. ‘This feast will have one very special ingredient. Dried henbane leaves.’
Li smiled and nodded her approval of the plan. She knew all about henbane. It was a narcotic plant and the leaves were the most powerful part. Dried, powdered henbane leaves were readily available in all the souks of the Sahara. They were used in small quantities as a painkiller and a sedative, but in larger quantities the plant was a deadly poison.
‘What is this henbane?’ asked Paulo. ‘And what will it do to the Scorpion and his men?’
‘It’ll turn them all into sleeping beauties,’ grinned Li. ‘As long as the village women get the dosage right, the Scorpion and his men will fall into a deep sleep, almost like a coma. It could last for days.’
‘When they are asleep,’ said Hakim’s father, ‘we shall tie them up and hold them prisoner until the proper agencies arrive.’
‘But how shall we bring the agencies here?’ asked one of the men.
The villagers fell silent. Theirs was a poor village. There was no radio mast or satellite dish here for them to communicate with the outside world.
‘I can answer that,’ said Hex, standing up. ‘The Scorpion is driving a new Land Rover. I had a good look at it from under my sheet as the Tuareg smuggled us past. I saw a satellite phone clipped to the dashboard. Once the Scorpion is asleep, we can use his phone to arrange for his arrest!’
The villagers roared with laughter at the idea of using the Scorpion’s own phone to make the call that would finish him, and the meeting broke up on a high note. The men went off to relieve the look-outs and to prepare a room that would be strong enough to hold the prisoners in case they woke up before the police arrived. The women clustered together to plan the feast.
All afternoon they worked, using food stores they could ill afford to lose and burning fuel that was in short supply. Alpha Force were very tired after their night of walking but they were determined to help. While Khalid and the other children slept, Li and Amber chopped and stirred with the village women and Alex, Hex and Paulo took their turns on watch. All five of them hoped they were right about the Scorpion. If he did not follow them back to the village, all the planning and work would have been for nothing. They could still report him to the right people, but the Scorpion had a knack for disappearing whenever the authorities thought they were close to catching him. If the Scorpion did not come to the village, there was no guarantee that he would ever be caught.
By the end of the afternoon all the food was ready. There was a rich bean soup, spiced chicken with orange peel and olives, a tagine of lamb with prunes and almonds, and a dish of sweet rice with raisins and cinnamon. It looked and smelled wonderful.
Amber stared at the little piles of dried, crushed henbane leaves, which were set out ready to add to the dishes at the last minute. ‘How do you know the right dosage?’ she asked the women.
Samir’s mother eyed the piles of grey powder. ‘The trick is to add enough to put them to sleep but without making the food taste bad. I think that is about right.’
‘And you’re sure it won’t kill them?’ asked Li.
Samir’s mother shrugged as though she did not really care. ‘If one man eats like a pig, then he might not wake up again. But as long as the other two live, we can still find out about the rest of their contacts.’
She looked at Amber and Li with a grim smile, then looked again, noticing their tired faces. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘All we can do is wait for our guests to arrive. And we can do that without your help. Go back to my house and sleep. We will wake you if anything happens.’
Li and Amber were too tired to argue. As they stumbled through the darkening alleyways to Samir’s house, they were joined by an equally tired Paulo, Hex and Alex. In the main room of the house they rolled out the sleeping mats that had been left for them and lay down side by side. Five minutes later they were all deeply asleep.
It was Khalid who woke them a few hours later. He started with Hex, who was nearest to the door.
‘Go ‘way,’ snapped Hex irritably, turning over on his mat.
Khalid moved on to Alex, crouching over him in the dark room and shaking him by the shoulder. ‘What?’ muttered Alex. ‘What is it?’
‘Headlights,’ hissed Khalid. ‘We see headlights, in the desert. They are heading for the village.’
T
WENTY – FIVE
WENTY – FIVE
‘It is them,’ whispered Paulo, raising his head to get a closer look at the approaching vehicle. ‘It is their Land Rover.’
‘Get down!’ hissed Alex, digging his elbow into Paulo’s ribs. ‘If they see us up here, everything’ll be ruined.’
Alpha Force were all lying on the roof of a house on the northernmost edge of the village. All the village houses had flat roofs which could be reached via a set of stone steps built on to the side of the house; each roof had a low, whitewashed wall around the edge. Paulo ducked his head back down behind this low wall and flattened himself on to the roof as the Land Rover rumbled past beneath them, heading for the village square.
Once the Land Rover had turned into the next street, Alex clambered to his feet and the other four joined him. They stared across the moonlit rooftops. The route to the main square was marked out for them. On every rooftop that bordered the way, one or two village men in dark robes were in position, their rifles trained on the street below in case anything went wrong.
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